Tuesday, August 4, 2015

We have! Over the month of July, I had the
pleasure of taking 9 of our families to see this excellent new movie. Inside
Out tells the story of 11 year old Riley who experiences a housing transition
with her family.

While Riley experiences moving to a new
house, missing a parent who is busy with new job, starting a new school, etc.
the story is focused on the journey of Riley's inner emotions (joy, sadness,
anger, fear, and disgust) as they struggle to cope with such change.

This
was a fantastic film for our families who have experienced significant and
ongoing transitions! Many of our children and mothers have made big moves with
far less supportive caregivers than Riley did and were able to relate to the
reactions of Riley's inner emotions. This movie helped our children to assign
words and images to the very abstract concepts of emotions, loss and
personality. It provided a great visual understanding for our mothers of
emotion development and how parenting can help or hinder healthy emotional
development.

For the mothers of Sheffield Place, this
movie was empowering because it showed the positive influence their support can
have on their children's adjustment during transition- the power they have to
help their children even when life's circumstances are out of their control.
For our children, the movie

validated and normalized the chaotic emotions they
may have experienced as a part of their homelessness.

Finally,
perhaps the most important lesson this movie had for our families is that all
emotions have a purpose, even sadness, and that it is healthy to let our
emotions do their job rather than stuff them down and try to be “happy” all
time.

After going to the theater to see the
movie- a first time experience for many of our kids, the families processed the
movie with their family therapist over pizza and ice cream. Later in the month
the families made collages of feeling faces and things that make them feel
specific emotions using a book of Inside Out characters. Currently, in Project
Hope, we have started using images from the movie
to help kids talk about which feelings are “driving” their bodies in times of
distress or if maybe their control panel is frozen (as in a scene from the
movie) so that

they feel like they are not in control.

I have to admit, there is little that makes
a professional counselor happier than when mainstream media supports mental
health and development with psychologically accurate information presented in
style that is relevant and accessible to our clients. We have and will continue
to use this movie as a tool for healing with the families of Sheffield Place. I
hope you’ll see it too!